Choices
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Sarralyn is a stubborn woman who insists on making her choices for herself. She's changed, and not being a great letter-writer, her mother doesn't know. Daine is coming to Rajmuat with an embassy, and it's impossible to know if she'll like what she finds.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** More Sarralyn/Junim. With a plot!

**Disclaimer:** Contrary to popular belief, Tamora Pierce is a fanfiction author who goes by the name of Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod. Let's have a show of hands. Everyone who believed that- nobody? Excellent. It isn't true.

**Dedication:** To Cassandra, Kaeliian, Cassie. Happy Holidays!

**sarralynandjunimsarralynandjunimsarralynandjunimsarralynandjunim**

Sarralyn sat in the sunny courtyard near her room, reading quietly.

She heard a rustle of silk, and a polite cough, and looked up.

Then Sarralyn's eyes nearly escaped their sockets; Queen Dovasary stood in front of her, looking timid, embarrassed and slightly amused all at once. Sarralyn jumped up. "I'm so sorry- have you been standing there long?"

"A few minutes, and sit back down. I'm not that much older than you."

Sarralyn sat obediently, slightly shell-shocked. Dovasary sat beside her.

"Miss Sarrasri Salmalin, I received a very flattering but very discomposing offer this morning, and I... need to talk to you about it."

Sarralyn looked up quickly. "Sarralyn, your Majesty."

"Sarralyn, then. I am correct in believing that you are Tortallan by birth?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

"If I am going to call you Sarralyn I insist that you drop the 'Your Majesty' nonsense. Anyway... what I have to say to you concerns Tortall. Sarralyn, I would prefer it if you spoke of what I am about to tell you to Junim only, and that sparingly."

Sarralyn directed a look of mild, polite reproof at Dovasary, who held up her hands. "Having The Cunning One for your spymaster makes you very cautious."

"Please tell me," Sarralyn said. "I'm not going to tell anyone else. What has happened?"

Dovasary took a deep breath, and looked at her clasped hands, and Sarralyn realised in some part what it must have been like to take the throne at thirteen or fourteen. "Do you know Prince Liam of Conté?"

"Yes," Sarralyn answered. "He's quite a bit older than me, though. Oh- don't tell me King Jonathan offered you a marriage with Liam?"

"He did," Dove said. "Which is why I have to speak to you."

She caught Sarralyn's eyes and held them.

"I know something of my people. They fought hard to put me on the throne and they will not appreciate a marriage to a foreign, luarin prince. They will be upset, very upset, if I even give the appearance of considering this... alliance. It would give me many ties to other countries, it is true, but I have ties in Aly and my sister and my nieces and nephews, and that is what they will think."

She sighed. "Sarralyn, there will be difficulties. Everyone in this palace and by extension a large number of people from the outside are aware of your background. Being born in Tortall to parents who are so loyal to the crown, and your power, counts against you. Your –forgive me- weakness when you came to this country may help your case, but there are people who could be very upset at your presence in this country at this time."

Sarralyn stared at Dovasary, until she remembered that this particular individual was the ruling monarch of the country she was currently in and averted her eyes. "Upset. What sort of upset, your Majesty?"

"Sarralyn. Please, I knew you when you were small. You do not need to use any of my titles. And the upset could take the form of riots, or it could take the form of arrows, and other such weapons, or both."

Dovasary met Sarralyn's eyes again: it was quite an unnerving experience. Queen Dovasary was rightly considered a venerable, courageous, legendary and somewhat dangerous ruler, and having such a person talk to you and meet your eyes in such a way was a little disturbing. "It may be best if you leave the country. Perhaps return to your family."

Sarralyn thought about this; Queen Dovasary's eyes remained on her. The courtyard was silent. Sarralyn looked down at her book, folded the corner of the page she had been on over, shut the book and looked up at Dovasary again. "I'm staying."

Dovasary was silent briefly, and then said- "That would be very dangerous."

"But less unpleasant than life at home," Sarralyn said quietly. "In Tortall, that is. Not only will there always be someone around the corner whispering about me, my mother is guaranteed to want to mollycoddle me."

"Not unreasonable," Dovasary remarked blandly. "You were half-way to the Black God's Realm when you boarded the Blue Kudarung to sail here. So I'm told."

Sarralyn cast a sharp glance at Dovasary from under her lashes. "I don't like being mollycoddled. It's claustrophobic."

Dovasary nodded.

"And my mother can be smothering," Sarralyn informed her. "She's of a protective turn of mind. So I'm staying," she concluded, "that is, unless-"

"I don't mind," Queen Dovasary pre-empted her. "It would be a positive relief to have someone other than Aly, Fesgao or myself who can translate the Tortallan embassy's Common, those who do not speak Kyprin."

Sarralyn went white- quite a feat, considering her sunburn. "Oh, Kyprioth's luck!"

Queen Dovasary looked at her, eyes twinkling. "You are picking up our Kyprin oaths very nicely."

"Mm," Sarralyn said, unsure how to respond to this. "I've just realised that my parents will in all likelihood be part of that embassy. Oh, dear."

Dovasary stood. "I believe I should receive the list of people who will be included very shortly."

Sarralyn looked up; she was tall, but not as tall as Dovasary when Sarralyn was sitting down. "You agreed to receive the embassy?"

Dovasary smiled wryly. "They would come whether I disliked it or not, I rather think. I could not refuse them without being offensive, or cutting off my trade routes to the east."

Sarralyn opened her mouth to say something, and shut it again.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: And chapter twooooooooooooooooo...

Disclaimer: Not mine.

* * *

The day of the embassy was not particularly bright, and it was positively chilly as Rajmuat went. Sarralyn stood with Junim somewhere behind and to the left of Queen Dovasary, well away from Ochobai, who had been unable to absent herself and kept shooting dagger-glances at Sarralyn.

Junim caught one of these, looking over to see if his sister was behaving, and frowned at Ochobai, jerking his head towards the Tortallan ship, which was nearly at the harbour mouth. Ochobai shrugged and made a rude gesture.

"That was directed at me, not you," Sarralyn muttered at Junim when he seemed about to go and tell his sister off. Junim grumbled under his breath, but stayed still.

A fanfare went off as the Tortallans entered the harbour mouth, and Queen Dovasary stood slowly, expression inscrutable.

"This is where it all gets tricky for her," Junim said softly in Sarralyn's ear.

"And me," Sarralyn replied, even quieter.

Junim took her hand and squeezed it gently. Sarralyn leant a little against him, taking the weight off her left foot, which was getting pins and needles.

The fanfare dropped a few volume notches at a signal from Fesgao. The people gathered at the harbour waiting for the Tortallan ship to dock were silent. Sarralyn watched Aly turn her head and look at the assembled people with her Sight. She didn't seem to find anything amiss.

The Tortallan ship was now so close that if Sarralyn squinted hard, she could see the expression on her mother's face- it would appear that Daine had not caught sight of her yet, despite the fact that Sarralyn's discreet (by Copper Isles standards) blue and gold tunic and breeches should stand out from most of the people there. She could also see her father, who looked rather more relaxed, if ever so slightly green. Sarralyn smiled fondly, remembering her own trip across from Tortall, although her father didn't look as sick as she'd been.

Her mother spotted her. This was, in some ways, a relief- Sarralyn hoped she hadn't changed so much in a few months that her mother wouldn't recognise her, but Sarralyn suddenly wondered what Daine's reaction to Junim would be. She quietly prayed that Daine was not in an interrogative, hawk-eyed mood, because if so she would certainly have spotted that Junim's arm was around Sarralyn's waist. Also, Sarralyn would be very happy if Junim's arm stayed there, and, having inherited a stubborn disposition from her mother, could argue till the kudarung rose.

Sarralyn was having grave misgivings about coming to see the Tortallan boat dock in the first place.

She closed her eyes briefly against the sun, which was in her eyes. At least, she reflected, she didn't have to worry as much about being spitted by one of Ochobai's reactionary friends' arrows as she thought she might; after eighteen years, the people of the Isles had enough faith in their ruler's common sense not to kick up too much of a fuss when she appeared to be seriously considering a decision they did not approve of at all.

Sarralyn wondered how Ochobai had got tangled up in a group of such rabid raka-separatists (the latter being a recently coined term for the people who believed that raka and luarin should live in separate parts of the Isles) when she was half-luarin. According to Aly, who had been thoroughly angry at her daughter's cavalier treatment of someone who stood as some kind of adopted cousin to her, Ochobai was probably jealous of how close Sarralyn was to Junim (accompanied by a wink that somewhat discomposed Sarralyn) and just looking for something to pick at her with. "Ochobai used to get away with a lot," Aly had explained. "I didn't know precisely how much." Aly had sighed and shrugged. "She's too much like me when I was younger, except I like to think I had a few more scruples."

"Sarralyn? Sarralyn, are you falling asleep?"

Sarralyn blinked and looked up into Junim's face. "Not quite."

Junim grinned. "Good. The Tortallans are about to dock."

Sarralyn looked at the people about to leave the boat. First, Prince Liam, looking highly nervous. Then, her parents- and Daine finally caught sight of Sarralyn, nudging Numair to look at their daughter. Numair glanced in her direction, soptted her and winked, but Daine looked at her daughter longer. Was Sarralyn wrong to detect an edge of disapproval? She wasn't sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** And for my next trick, chapter three.

**It has come to my notice that there are a few people reading this story who are slightly confused about where Rikash is/what's happened to him. That's probably because this story kind of follows on from some of the Sarralyn fics I've already written, because I wrote them with Sarralyn/Junim, decided I liked the pairing, and wound up with the plotbunny this story became. It wasn't originally going to be so long, but the damn plotbunny grew fangs.**

**Dedication:** I can't remember exactly who it was, but to whomsoever suggested Sarralyn/Junim to me when I was casting around for a pairing.

**Disclaimer:** Zilch is mine.

* * *

Sarralyn was wrong. Daine had seen her as the Tortallan ship came into Rajmuat, looking more normal, but happier than Sarralyn was wont to look, and dressed in brighter colours. Sarralyn stood out against the crowd with her slight sunburn and relatively quiet colours. But, more importantly, Daine could see the shadow of a young man, slightly taller than Sarralyn, arm wrapped around Sarralyn's waist. She saw Sarralyn lift her head towards him, as though she whispered something to him. She saw Sarralyn lean on him briefly.

This upset Daine. Sarralyn was her little girl still, relying on Daine to love her and comfort her. It hadn't been so since she was four or five, but when Rikash had nearly died Sarralyn had needed her.

Sarralyn had not understood that it was an accident. Sarralyn had felt too much as if it was her fault and it was Daine who had closed ranks around her, comforted her, protected her from gossiping tongues and unkind jokes. Daine had told her it was all right; Daine had taken her to see Rikash when he first regained consciousness.

Daine had fought for her daughter's sanity tooth and nail. She did not want some boy to take Sarralyn's confidence away, destroy what little strength the once-invincible Sarralyn had had when Daine last saw her.

It looked, to Daine, as if Sarralyn had given herself up to another, and this time total, destruction.

She beckoned Numair over. "Look at your daughter."

"Where?" Numair asked, scanning the crowds- "oh, there. She looks happy."

This was, of course, not the answer Daine wanted. She kicked her husband's shin gently.

Numair squinted. "But who's that with her?"

"My thoughts exactly," Daine hissed. "I think Sarralyn has got entangled with a boy."

"She has?" Numair enquired of the air.

"Numair!"

"Daine," Numair said gravely, a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth. He slid his arm around her shoulder. "Sweetheart, I think we can trust Sarralyn's taste."

"Numair, can we?" Daine asked, resting her head against him. "Sarralyn's very vulnerable at the moment..."

"Ah-ha," Numair said, putting a finger on her lips, "Sarralyn was very vulnerable when you last saw her. There's a difference. Daine, she may be stronger now. It's not likely she's fallen for someone who likes the idea of a powerful mage on their arm."

"And you didn't?" Daine joked, trying to cover her anxiety.

Numair kissed her. "No, magelet- I fell in love."

However, Daine was still upset. Sarralyn came to find her in the rooms that had been allocated for the Sarrasri-Salmalín clan, after the ship had docked, feeling slightly shy.

Daine was unpacking. She had her back to Sarralyn as Sarralyn opened the door quietly and shut it behind her. "Mother?"

"Sarralyn! Goddess, I've missed you- how have you been? Is it too busy here for you? Does everyone gossip about you? It's really hot here, isn't it- I'm surprised you haven't come home yet! You look so well!" Her mother flew at her, hugging her until Sarralyn thought her ribs would break.

Oh, Goddess, not now, Sarralyn thought pleadingly. Save the we-all-want-you-home-come-home-with-us hints for later, just be pleased to see me. She hugged the shorter woman, and then drew back slightly, feeling awkward. "I... feel well," she said stiffly.

Daine laughed insincerely. Sarralyn seemed upset with her, she thought, worried.

"You're your father's daughter! Your father loves hot weather. We'd have come earlier but Rikash wasn't strong enough."

Rikash wasn't strong enough. The phrase hang between them like wet clothes on a washing line, dampening the air between them, creating a palpable, moist barrier- criminal, and mother of the victim; incidentally the mother of the criminal as well.

Sarralyn felt helpless. She couldn't remember being close to her mother, except for a couple of months before she came to Rajmuat, when Daine had comforted her, and she felt strange about that period, detached from herself as she had been then.

She was too big, she realised suddenly, too big; too lonely, too wide-ranging, too solitary, too much of a one-in-a-million chance. Daine, for all her power, and for all the luck that had made her the woman she was, retained a sense of the small. What she did, her actions, were what legends were made of; the woman Daine as she was known in Tortall was not. She was brighter than Sarralyn, warmer, and she reaped the benefits of closer friendships. When Sarralyn had nearly killed Rikash, it destroyed the foundations of familiarity that she was built on, and she had broken down, she had become smaller than Daine, small enough for Daine to reach out to her and comfort and hug and protect her. It was as if Sarralyn had lost fifteen years, and become a scared five-year old.

When Daine had last seen her, Sarralyn had been that confused child. She had retained some wits, but only just discovered a strong moral conscience that made her weaken herself in the knowledge that never, ever, ever would she want to be able to destroy another human being again.

Sarralyn had been needy, terrified, easily hurt, irrational when she left Tortall. This was how Daine had last seen her. But Sarralyn had changed- Sarralyn had grown up- Sarralyn was stronger- once more, Sarralyn was just too big.

Daine had caught glimpses of this, but she refused to believe that her daughter could grow to be happy without her, somewhere Daine herself disliked, that her daughter could put down roots, with the aid of a man that Daine neither knew nor approved of. Daine did not trust Sarralyn to know what was best for her, as Numair trusted Sarralyn; father and daughter had much more in common than mother and daughter.

And as they stood there, looking at each other, close together but slightly apart, a few years' worth of understanding crammed into a few seconds' painful knowledge, Sarralyn understood that.

Daine did not.

"I... want to go and find Rikash," Sarralyn said, lowering her eyes. "I'd like to see him."

Daine nodded.

Sarralyn left. Quickly.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** And the fourth chapter. Enter Rikash. Please **_read and review! _**As a Christmas favour to me? You know, peace on earth, goodwill to all women:P

**Dedication:** To all my reviewers, for every fic. It's been great. Have a merry Christmas/winter holiday and a better New Year!

**Disclaimer:** Thou shalt not accuse the author of stealing the works of Tamora Pierce; for the truth shalt come out, and the truth is that the author is not Tamora Pierce, and doth not claim to be.

* * *

Rikash found Sarralyn before Sarralyn could find him. Clearly, he'd asked directions from someone.

She stopped, and looked at him.

He was slightly shorter than her, and very pale. She supposed she had been that colour when she arrived in Rajmuat, but she couldn't imagine it. His hair had been unmercifully cropped by someone, and stuck out at all angles. He looked very tired, but cheerful. His Gift was fine; clean, brimming with life, and controlled.

"Hello, Rikash," she said.

Rikash stopped, and looked at his sister.

He saw that she was still taller than him, very tanned, and dressed in brighter colours than she had when he'd last seen her. She looked almost shy, and humanised, a softer and more approachable version of the aloof and haughty girl who Rikash had lived with and knew inside-out. She also looked happy. Her nose had been broken at some point, quite badly. Her Gift was no longer the depleted glimmer Rikash recalled from her visits to his bed in the infirmary, instead something along the lines of a contained liquid silver ball. Her wild magic hadn't suffered as badly from bleeding off, and seemed fine.

"'Lo, Sarralyn," he said. "Missed you."

Sarralyn stepped forwards, then back. She didn't want to upset him. She didn't know if he would be upset.

Rikash didn't think like that. He hugged his sister briefly and grinned happily at her. "D'you like the Copper Isles?"

She smiled back. "Yes."

"Good!" Rikash said cheerfully. "Da's been horrendously sea-sick, by the way. Ma's been incredibly anxious about everything and everyone as per usual, yourself not a little. She worried about you left right and centre when you left and in general acted like a thwarted mother hen. She does, you know."

Sarralyn nodded jerkily. "I know."

"And," sighed Rikash, keeping his tone light and melodramatic and his eyes firmly on his sister, "I can tell that she's already started on the come-home-to-Tortall-with-us hints."

Sarralyn's head snapped up. "What?"

Rikash widened his eyes and stared at her, smiling slightly. "I reeeeeeeeaaaad minds..."

Sarralyn snorted, and flapped her hand at her brother.

"Our mother is not often a silly woman," Rikash said conversationally, seating himself on a marble bench and peeling a kumquat from a nearby fruitbowl, "but I really do think she has no business whatsoever interfering with yourself. Where you want to be, and who you want to be with..."

"She does it anyway," Sarralyn said gloomily, sitting on the bench beside Rikash. "I wait only for the hints that Junim's a destructive playboy."

"Ha!" Rikash cried in triumph. "Da owes me two silver nobles! I told him I'd get the man's name out of you!"

"WHAT?" Sarralyn screeched, and swung at Rikash, who ducked, laughing.

"No, seriously, sis'. I knew Ma didn't like what she could see between you and-" here his voice went up to a joking falsetto- "Junim-" it returned to normal- "although we didn't know who he was at the time, so I bet Da that he was a perfectly nice, normal guy. So."

Sarralyn growled. "... little brothers!"

"Pests, aren't we?" Rikash acknowledged casually. "Mind you, half the student population doesn't call me a pest. (The female half, that is, the male half spends a lot of its time calling me a pest and other variations on that insult.) Just hang in there, Lyn. She'll drop it- eventually."

Sarralyn gazed at him. Rikash looked back.

"How many times have I told you not to call me Lyn?"

It was Daine's turn to enter her daughter's rooms and close the door as quietly as she could, although Sarralyn was looking at her.

"Sarralyn, darling-"

Sarralyn, darling picked up a hairbrush and started to attack her loose dark hair in a manner that informed the world that each follicle had done her a great personal injury. It hadn't, but the knowledge that Daine had spoken to Aly about herself and Junim had. Aly, justly angry that one of her sons –fortunately for Daine, she hadn't quite worked out which one, or Aly might have done even her some nasty damage– should have been accused of 'taking up with' a vulnerable young woman with intent to drop her as soon as it became unfashionable to have a powerful mage on one's arm, informed Sarralyn.

Sarralyn was not happy.

In fact, Sarralyn was enraged. She had expected something of the kind for a few days now, ever since Rikash's warning. Meanwhile, the rest of the embassy had been settling down and getting on to the serious business of trying to decipher Queen Dovasary's intentions on the matter of marriage to Prince Liam.

"- I've heard rumours, scandalous rumours, about you and-"

"I thought," Sarralyn said coldly, "that scandalous rumours were what this family does best."

Daine carried on. "-and a boy named... well, actually-"

"I don't know exactly what he's named," Sarralyn mimicked her mother. "Well, his name is Junim, Aly's eldest son, and hold tight, because you're going to hear a lot more."

Daine gasped. "Sarralyn, sweetie!"

She stood, putting the hairbrush down, taking advantage of the fact that she was taller than Daine. "And some of it will be true."

Daine sat down with a thump. "Darling, I guessed you were involved with someone, but!"

"But what?" Sarralyn asked cruelly.

Daine held out her hands to her daughter. "Darling, there are some men in the world who don't always have the purest of intentions-"

"Mother!" Sarralyn snapped. "I haven't spent the past twenty years with my head in a boot! And do you really want Rikash to hear this? He is in the next room, you know, and the walls are thin and our voices are loud!"

"Your brother," Daine told her daughter with dignity, "is far more experienced in such matters than you are. I haven't had my head in a boot either. Besides, your brother is not as vulner-"

Sarralyn dropped the book she had picked up in the hope of dulling the boredom of a lecture and screamed.

Daine jumped up. "What is it, Sarralyn?"

"Nothing," Sarralyn said. "Member of the arachnid family."

She went to the window, stuck her head and arm out, and rapped on the next window along. It opened, and Rikash's head popped out. "WHAT? I was in the middle of a chapter!"

"Sorry," Sarralyn said. "Spider."

"SP-" Rikash nearly exploded. "You interrupted me because of a spider?! Turn into a cat and eat it!"

Sarralyn rolled her eyed and withdrew. "Spiders aside, you were saying something to me... I think," she addressed Daine.

Daine ignored the calculated insult. "There are some men who will pick you up, make you feel like you mean the world to them and then drop you just like that, sweeting."

"And you think Junim is one of those?" Sarralyn's voice went abruptly from cool to glacier-cold.

Daine scented dangerous waters, and decided to plunge straight into it, be the sharks ever so hungry. "Yes, darling- I do."

"Mother!" Sarralyn shouted. "Are! You! Aware! That! I! Passed! My! Fifth! Birthday! Some! Time! Ago! Or did that fact escape you?"

"No!" Daine snapped. "Did the fact that a few months ago you were a skinny liability escape you?"

"A-" Sarralyn gasped. "Not even you, Mother! I expected even you to realise that I've changed!"

"YOU HAVEN'T!" Daine bellowed. Sarralyn heard the sound of a door banging open nearby. "YOU HAVEN'T, SARRALYN! YOU'RE STILL A TEENAGER WHO THINKS SHE'S WORDLY-WISE BECAUSE SHE'S SPENT A FEW MONTHS IN ANOTHER C-"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP?" a new player in the shouting-match yelled. "I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CHAPTER!"

Daine turned, saw her son, turned back to Sarralyn in the mistaken belief that 'spider' was some form of code for 'mayday, mayday, mother is going mental', and opened her mouth to shout.

Sarralyn looked up from examining a hangnail, and said with a straight face, "Mother, you are destined to be interrupted by your children."

"Sarralyn, can't you listen to reason?" Daine demanded. "This... this Junim is clearly trifling with you! Drop him before he drops you!"

"Oh, for Mithros' sake, Mother!" Rikash exploded. "I've met Junim. He's a perfectly nice, normal guy- well, not normal, no man who handle Lyn for more than two months and come out alive is normal –and actually, if I were either of them, I would consider it something of an insult that you're even suggesting that Sarralyn should drop Junim! Nobody told you to drop Da! Speaking of which, Mother, Da's met him, and he approves, so!..."

There was a brief silence as Rikash glared at his mother, Sarralyn looked vaguely surprised, and their mother looked exasperated and more than a bit astonished.

Someone coughed discreetly. All three Sarrasri-Salmalíns turned to the someone and fairly shouted, "WHAT?"

Prince Liam, who looked a little panicked to be faced with three angry, powerful mages, said: "If you could continue this debate at a lower pitch? I'm sorry, but you're making a scene."

Daine sighed and stamped out, mouth in a grim twist.

"Where's the spider, Lyn?" Rikash asked wearily. "Now that I'm here, and have no chance of getting back into Discourses on the Genetical Code of the Human Being, I may as well squash it for you."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: And another one.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

* * *

The embassy was supposed to spend two more weeks in Rajmuat.

Daine spent a week of that avoiding her daughter and sulking.

Everyone, including Prince Liam (who had a talent for diplomatic understatement), acknowledged that it was getting difficult to meet the two in polite society and not take sides, and rather painful to hold a conversation that they were both participating in.

Being a member of such an important foreign family, especially in the mage world, Sarralyn had been catapulted unmercifully into the Kyprin mages' social lives and, thanks to a little judicious meddling by Aly, carefully eased into the rest of Kyprin polite society. Sarralyn had therefore found herself something of a fixture in said polite society, and as Daine was a prominent part of the Tortallan embassy, it was very hard for Daine to avoid her. Particularly given that her son and husband made no such attempts. Indeed, Numair and Rikash positively sought Sarralyn out, while Daine chatted to a noble whose name she couldn't remember, and, if given the choice, would have elected to avoid, or a random passing mage, or, if nobody was unoccupied in her vicinity, some of the omnipresent kudarung.

"Maybe I should have a relapse," Rikash suggested quietly. "That way, we can go back to Tortall and Mother can stop pretending that she isn't trying to keep away from Lyn."

"No point," his father replied, watching Daine engage a passing young woman in conversation. "We'd be back on square one of the great chessboard of life. And speaking of chessboards, how good exactly is your sister at that game?"

He indicated Sarralyn, who was playing against Aly and losing very badly. Meanwhile, Dove played against Prince Liam, Taybur Sibigat's protective hand on her shoulder as he watched her take a bishop from the board. Dove seemed to be ignoring the hand and conversing cheerfully with Liam.

Rikash wrenched his eyes from the fascinating love-triangle scene and looked at his sister. "Dreadful," he said. "But improving. Oh, checkmate. She lost again."

Numair elbowed him. "Be nice to your sister."

Rikash elbowed back. "I am."

"... and your father."

"No fair."

"Life isn't fair."

"Oh yes it is. It got rid of Ozorne what's-'is-name, didn't it?"

"That was your mother," Numair informed his son. "Your mother with a grudge is a dangerous woman."

"All women with grudges are dangerous," Rikash pointed out. "Ow!" he exclaimed, hand going to the back of his head.

"I suppose you'd know." Sarralyn grinned unapologetically at the glaring Rikash.

"I thought you started a new chess game?" Numair asked.

Sarralyn shook her head. "Aly was beating the guts out of me, so I folded. She is now beating the guts out of..." she peered over Rikash's head "Princess Petranne."

"Really?" Rikash turned to look. "I thought people made a policy here of not annoying the royal family?"

"Silly berk," Sarralyn said affectionately. "If you'd read up on the Copper Isles' legal system as well as you had the workings of the human brain, you'd know that Her Royal Highness Princess Petranne is not in line for the throne. At least," she added, "until somebody does something about the scratch laws that were put in place stopping a luarin from taking the throne just after the revolution... but that's neither here nor there."

There was a brief silence.

"This embassy can't last long," Numair remarked suddenly.

"I know," Sarralyn agreed. "However much Queen Dovasary might like Liam, I'll bet you she puts a higher price on her country, and her country can't have a luarin king."

"So," Rikash said. "The sooner this ends the better, really, for everyone. The quicker you get back over the other side of the sea, Da, the better, the quicker Mother gets away from Sarralyn and her sweetheart- ow!"

"Served you right," Sarralyn snapped.

"Er," Numair attempted to interrupt.

"The quicker," Rikash continued, shuffling away from his sister and ignoring his father, "Sarralyn gets away from Mother the better, because if not soon Lyn will snap, which will be messy, the quicker we schlep off back to Tortall the quicker her Majesty's populace settles down, the quicker Liam will recover from a broken heart-"

"What?" Sarralyn squeaked. "Oh, don't tell me-"

"Oh yes," Rikash confirmed. "Come on, Lyn, anyone with eyes could see it! He's head over heels for her. It would be worrying, if it weren't so funny."

"Exc-" Numair tried to interrupt again.

"Not good, though," Sarralyn argued. "The people will-"

"Will you be quiet, children?!" Numair cried.

Rikash and Sarralyn both 'shh'd simultaneously.

"I wasn't thinking politics!" Numair said in a quieter tone. "I was thinking that your mother will have a serious sense of humour failure if she is obliged to remain here much longer!"

Both siblings stared at him. "Oh," Sarralyn said, feeling curiously empty.

"Well," Rikash commented, "I suppose... that's true."

It was only much later, looking out into the night for an answer, that Sarralyn realised that what her father had said was true; Rajmuat did not suit Daine at all. And furthermore, the truth was hammered in that she and her mother could no longer coexist. They both needed their space- more than any one place could provide for both of them.

That made Sarralyn sad.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** And the next chapter. Please **_read & review!_**

**Disclaimer:** Nothing belongs to me.

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Sarralyn could not remember when she stopped meditating.

It had been necessary since she was a few years old. She needed the inner quiet to keep her Gift from spilling out of her, as opposed to the controlled storm that followed her about like a change in the air, always threatening to explode.

She needed the peace, the compulsion for keeping her magic in. When she was younger Sarralyn had not had enough reason to do this. She was cold. Not uncaring; but calculating. She knew that all bad things passed, in the end. As did good things; but Sarralyn didn't worry about that.

This Sarralyn meditated for half an hour and tried hard not to fall asleep.

And when Sarralyn tried hard to do something, that something got done.

Of course, in a flash, a single instant, a perfect moment of destruction, a second of reshuffling and binding, this Sarralyn changed irrevocably.

Well, not to say she changed; the Sarralyn that loved and was loved by someone who wasn't born to love her, or loved her because she was theirs, was merely the other Sarralyn without the other part.

The ruthless part.

The uncaring part.

The cold part.

The part that didn't care if her Gift wreaked havoc, so long as Sarralyn survived to stand up, dust herself down, glare at the wreckage, say 'That wasn't supposed to happen' and walk off unscathed.

It was powerful, this part of Sarralyn that was and wasn't the girl herself. But it was also brittle, and easily broken, because it lied to itself, that part-

and the lie was: Sarralyn cares for nothing.

The truth came out, as all truths do; and with that truth the Sarralyn that was and wasn't Sarralyn broke like the hard icy crust on a snowball that someone made the day before and left out in the cold.

It slipped away, and in a few months Sarralyn suffered the built-up flood of all the little guilts that waylay us all. Unlike the little guilts normal people suffer, Sarralyn had a focus for every wrong thing she'd done: Rikash's face.

And the part of Sarralyn that was Sarralyn declared the truth-

and the truth was: Sarralyn never wanted to be able to destroy again.

This was the Sarralyn that meditated daily, but took little interest in the upkeep of a power she didn't want.

This, the Sarralyn that took the guilt of twenty years and stood up at the end and took a bow. Perhaps not smiling; but alive.

For although people said many things about Sarralyn, things that were sometimes hurtful, sometimes amusing, sometimes sordid, and sometimes absurd, at no time- in no place- did anyone say that she was not strong.

Invincible- no. None of us is invincible.

Strong- certainly.

Being strong- not in the physical sense, but in the very core. It was a statement of fact: Sarralyn was strong. She was born strong. Anyone could break her bones and leave her crying, but they would be haunted by the knowledge that even Sarralyn would survive. She was born strong; and she would die strong; and however much she may have fantasised about the sheer simplicity of death in the nightmare days when Rikash wandered on the edges of life, Sarralyn didn't want to die.

Nor did she want to cause death, and one of the surest ways of doing that would be not meditating. So Sarralyn meditated, resenting every second she spent in contact with the blackish-grey fire of her power.

But this was not the final Sarralyn. Indeed, there was no such thing as a final Sarralyn. She changed, and kept changing.

For now, though- at this point –Sarralyn was the Sarralyn that she might have been with a little less pride and a lot less magic.

Softer, slightly kinder, more feeling. She retained many of the convictions that she'd made just after Rikash's near-death, near-disastrous, near-destroying experience, but accepted that few of them could come to pass. For instance, she knew now that there was no healthy way to push her magic away from her. Her only defence was her self-control, or so she eventually realised.

Where does one acquire self-control? Sarralyn asked herself, feeling slightly at a loss; and unusually, herself replied. Meditation.

And so it was that Sarralyn found herself wondering: when was it that she had last meditated?

Looking within showed her a fairly tidy charcoal mass of power. Gingerly, she touched it with her mind.

It bit her! It flared out at her, stinging!

Sarralyn's mind withdrew, simmering. That was not allowed. Power may come and go like a cat, but it certainly couldn't be allowed to bite and scratch like a cat.

Sarralyn's mind grabbed the recalcitrant power firmly, moulding it as she wished, stirring it up and soothing it into place, controlling it, pulling it in. Then she retreated to a safe distance, and waited to see what would happen.

Nothing. Her mind reached out a tentative tendril, and touched the power. Still nothing, just the healthy tingling of well-controlled magic.

Sarralyn smiled slightly.

"Er- Sarralyn?"

Her eyes snapped open. No, a part of her, less quick-thinking, moaned. Please say that little exercise didn't-

Wait, a commonsensical part of her mind said sharply. It is not possible to go back in time, unless I want to arrive inside out. And therefore...

A further part of Sarralyn almost sighed. I am clearly making a habit of being interrupted in cou-

Her eyes snapped open. "Yes? Oh."

A listening servant was later to remark that if anyone managed to put so much venom into that one staccato syllable that it would dent the treasury doors at a hundred paces, it had probably been Sarralyn Sarrasri Salmalin on a rematch.

Daine certainly flinched, shifting backwards from where she sat next to Sarralyn on a stone bench.

There was quiet, as the mother wondered how to approach this more troublesome of her children and the daughter wondered how to stave off this constantly troublesome parent. Sarralyn uncrossed her long legs, stretching them out and crossing them neatly at the ankles. She shoved her long-fingered hands into her pockets, leant back against the back of the bench, and looked up.

It was dark. Night; Sarralyn must have been meditating for a long time, much more than the thousand slow heartbeats she used to limit herself to.

A few lights, activated by the touch of a palm on the discs of black glass that held their spells, lit the darkness. People chattered softly, meeting and greeting, introducing and rediscovering old family connections.

"So," Sarralyn's voice was sharp enough to cut the humid air, "what do you want? Mother," she added reluctantly.

Daine started, having been convinced that her daughter was going to say nothing to her, but replied steadily enough: "I want you to come back to Tortall with us."

Had Sarralyn been anyone but Sarralyn, she would have shrieked and caused a scene. However, Sarralyn was definitely Sarralyn. There was a short period of icy silence, then- "I beg your pardon?" glided frostily out of Sarralyn's mouth.

Daine almost shivered, but persevered. "I want you to come back home."

"Home!" Sarralyn laughed softly, calling on all the froideur and haughtiness she had summoned in the face of the most difficult social attacks. For the first time, she looked at Daine, only briefly, a quick glance, and then at the sky again, the bright stars, bright and flaming, flaming fury tempered by the cold empty ether... They only cast light, rational Sarralyn reminded herself. We are not close enough for heat. "Define home!... please," she said coldly.

"Somewhere," Daine paused, "that you belong. Sarralyn, your home is in Tortall!"

Sarralyn turned to face her. The bright light of a mage-lantern was reflected in Daine's eyes; the light glinted off Sarralyn's hair, although Sarralyn could not see that. "My home is not in Tortall," Sarralyn whispered. "It is here."

Daine choked.

Sarralyn ignored her. "Here. You heard me."

"I most certainly did!" Daine cried, sounding like a mother reproaching a ten-year-old for repeating something she'd heard Daddy say, but wasn't part of an accepted vocabulary for young ladies.

"And if you heard me," Sarralyn continued, feeling somewhat swept along by a tide of direction and not entirely sure precisely how she had arrived at this moment, but knowing this was the course she intended to take, "then you know that I meant what I said."

She caught and held her mother's eyes. "I stay in Rajmuat."

Daine held her gaze for a moment longer, then dropped her eyes. "You stay in Rajmuat." She sounded defeated.

Sarralyn leaned forward and hugged her briefly. Very briefly.

_They only cast light. We are not close enough for heat._

All was not quite right with the world, but it was halfway to getting there.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** -sob- -tear- -final chapter- -**_please review_**-

**Dedication:** To Cassie.

**Disclaimer:** Nothing is mine.

* * *

The unofficial second-to-last day of the embassy's trip to Rajmuat arrived- for although the departure date had never been fixed, most people presumed that it couldn't last more than two weeks unless Queen Dovasary was seriously interested in the marriage alliance. That last was not an impression Dove wished to give out. 

So the day arrived, without Daine or Sarralyn saying more than a few words to each other. Politenesses, with little or no feeling behind them.

Rikash and Numair succeded fairly well in bridging the gap between the two. It was a good thing, they often thought, that there were two of them. One might have been torn to pieces between the combined force of Sarralyn and Daine. The former needed her family, but couldn't be brought to admit it except possibly to Junim when no-one else was listening. The latter was perfectly happy to be explicit about needing her family, or at least two thirds of it and to demand, on occasion, the company of said two thirds.

And the day arrived, with not much emotion on either side, Tortallan or Kyprin, although both sides were ostensibly happy with the negotiated sea borders, treaties, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The friendship between Tortall and Rajmuat, and, by extension, Dove and Liam, seemed to be that: just friendship.

Very few people knew that Dove was presenting a perfect facade to the world, and so was Liam; but they couldn't hide much from people who knew them well. This included Aly, and Rikash the sharp-eyed and –eared and experienced. And what Aly kept quiet about, Rikash told to those he could trust.

It appeared that Dove liked Liam, and vice versa; and if circumstances had been different, Dove might have married Liam. But they didn't have that choice, because Dove's children would rule when she died, and the people would not accept a three-quarter-luarin queen. Dove wanted peace for the Copper Isles, proper peace, without a spymaster striking terror into the hearts of the populace –of course, Aly could strike terror if she wanted to, but there were a great deal fewer people down whose spines a shiver went when someone said 'Bright Eyes', 'Duani' or 'The Cunning One' than 'Topabaw'. Topabaw had been a nightmare. The Cunning One was truth... of a sort.

Dove's definition of 'peace' did not include riots in the streets and luarin murdered because it appeared the next queen would be more luarin than raka. And she valued her country rather more than her comfort. She wanted peace; and therefore peace she would have.

So the embassy would leave, at least half its purpose fulfilled. When it left, it would leave behind Sarralyn Sarrasri Salmalin and a lot of promises to visit.

Sarralyn watched it go from the harbour. She stood there for a long time. Not having the Sight, she couldn't choose to sharpen her vision, to see further, across the miles of sea. She was not used to wishing she had a power she didn't. It hurt, a sharp pain twisting in her stomach. It wasn't that she wanted to be closer to her mother, it was that she wanted to see them one last time.

Warm arms encircled her waist and Junim rested his chin on her shoulder. "They meant it when they said they'd visit."

"Did they?" Sarralyn's voice sounded small and childlike, even to her own ears.

"Of course. No regrets?"

Sarralyn leant back into his embrace. "No regrets."


End file.
